Board of Trustees

2014-15

The MidAmerica Region, UUA, where UUs

visibly live our faith,

create connections,

grow our membership,

welcome all persons who share our

UU values.

Bill Sasso

PresidentQ What have you discovered about the MidAmerica

Region in your board service?

A It's exciting to realize the added potential that

MidAmerica has relative to our predecessor districts. We

now have "critical mass" with respect to many aspects of

the work of the religious community, and our Board and

Staff have an open mind about experimenting with new

ways to support our congregations!

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has

engaged you over time?

A While I have been involved in racial justice as well as

environmental work over the long term, perhaps the

most significant area of my personal engagement has

been with efforts to achieve equality for people of all

sexual orientations and gender identities. This has

included helping to found Carbondale's Rainbow Café (a

safe space for GLBTQ youth and allies) in 2000 as well

as demonstrating in support of marriage equality in front

of the Illinois Statehouse in October, 2013.

Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship, Carbondale, Illinois

Eric Huffer

SecretaryQ What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in your

board service?

A In my time on the MidAmerica Board, I have seen how much our

region shares in common, like the similar struggles of the

unemployed factory workers in Detroit and Ohio, and the miners in

Kentucky, or how many of our congregations have large

geographic distances between them and another UU

congregation. I also am a little surprised at how much our region

seems to share a unique mid-western mindset, and this helps to

affirm my belief that the move to consolidate into a region was the

right one for us to make.

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has engaged

you over time?

A The social justice issue that most moves me currently is the

struggle for marriage equality. I am excited that we may be near

the day where it is the "law of the land.” I am also deeply

concerned by the growing wealth and opportunity gap that is

occurring in our country, and I am hopeful that we can find a way

forward through that.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington

Lexington, Kentucky

Tom Sommerfeld

TreasurerQ What have you discovered about the

MidAmerica Region in your board service?

A I hadn't realized that all the state names

referred to Native peoples one way or

another.

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or

concern has engaged you over time?

A Civil Rights in its many forms.

Northwoods Unitarian Universalist

Fellowship

Woodruff, Wisconsin

Cynthia Landrum

Trustee

Q What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in

your board service?

A We are stronger together! With our amazing staff, we really

are building the new era of Unitarian Universalism. Our UUA

is paying attention and engaged with us on our quest.

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has

engaged you over time?

A Marriage Equality has been one issue I've been engaged in

for about two decades. In the last year, many of the states of

our MidAmerica Region saw great leaps forward, which has

been so wonderful! This year my state of Michigan had a brief

moment of marriage equality where our UU ministers together

really made a difference, and I was pleased to be part of that

story and telling that story to our larger movement.

Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty

Clarklake, Jackson County, Michigan

Dave Martin

TrusteeQ What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in your board service?

A Wonderful committed people

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern has engaged you over time?

A I am president of Iowa City Foreign Relations Council. We bring speakers to the area to discuss international relations via a series of luncheons throughout the year.

Unitarian Universalist Society

Iowa City, Iowa

Kyrie Bock

TrusteeQ What have you discovered about the

MidAmerica Region in your board service?

A What inspiring people, congregations, and

communities are taking major actions and

making significant impacts across the Region.

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or

concern has engaged you over time?

A The focus I see over time that has me

engaged is heightened collaboration and

communication between congregations across

the region for strengthening communities.

Unity Temple Unitarian Church

Chicago, Illinois

Doug Cauble

Vice PresidentQ What have you discovered about the MidAmerica

Region in your board service?

A The nearly two hundred churches in the

MidAmerican Region are variations on a wonderful

theme, distinct yet homogenous. The linkage that

MidAmerica can help facilitate between each unique

group will provide many opportunities.Exciting times…

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or concern

has engaged you over time?

A I've been involved with a Community Kitchen and

Food Pantry in Bean Blossom, Indiana for the past 15

years. Mother's Cupboard serves an average of 175

free hot meals every day, no questions asked. We

have no government or specific faith based funding.

We exist because of the generosity of our neighbors.

No one should ever be hungry…

Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington

Bloomington, Indiana

Janis Cheney

TrusteeQ What have you discovered about the

MidAmerica Region in your board service?

A While the MidAmerica region is large and

diverse, our shared focus on living our UU

principles and working to strengthen and enhance

our faith communities is a powerful and unifying

force. Through that work, we can be an even

stronger force for good in the world.

Q What social justice area, issue, focus, or

concern has engaged you over time?

A Unfortunately, there are far too many issues and

injustices to choose from! I find myself primarily

drawn to protecting the environment, to addressing

issues of poverty / economic inequality, and to

protecting women's rights and health care.

Bismarck-Mandan Unitarian Universalist

Bismarck, ND

Ian Evison

Ex OfficioQ What have you discovered about the MidAmerica Region in your

board service?

Board service helped me stretch my understanding of who we are

in a MidAmerica that is both more diverse and more unified than I

ever imagined. I made trips to Bismarck and Louisville Fall 2014.

Very different worlds and yet literally under the surface, deep

connections as the boom in fracking in the Bakkan Oils Fields in

North Dakota and the decline in coal mining in Eastern Kentucky

since 2011 are very much parts of the same story.

Q What social justice focus has engaged you over time?

I ponder how I as an individual and we as a movement “show up”

where it is hard to show up. It was powerful to be part of our UU

contingents at the Marriage Equality rallies in Minnesota and Illinois

state capitals, part of the mass of those in yellow Standing on the Side

of Love shirts. A sermon by Rev. Ashley Horan asked how are we

going to follow up on these victories in marriage equality by “showing

up” in places that may be even harder for us? How do we “show up”

when race and economic injustice are involved? How do we “show up”

where we need to think not of what the UU response should be, but

rather that we need to follow the lead of others?

Beverly Unitarian Church

Chicago, IL

https://www.MidAmericaUUA.org